The joy of giving

In my last post I wrote about a Spider Web Quilt that my Patchwork Group was making for our youngest member Sarah.
It has not been made for the usual reasons we gift quilts to members: a 'Big" birthday, 60, 70, 80, 90, even 100! Or because someone has been ill or receiving treatment.  It was because Sarah is so much younger than all of us we thought it was about time she received a quilt as over the years she has contributed to everyone else's! And we knew she would be thrilled!  And we were thrilled to make it for her and anticipate her surprise.

Sarah makes a lot of baby quilts: for friends and also commissions from friends and we know she loves bright colours and hand stitching with Perle threads. We also knew she loved the Spider Web pattern as we used that last year for a 60th birthday gifted quilt.

A No-brainer then to make Sarah one. We used a fine pale cream muslin (from Ruth's stash) for the background kites and strips of all the colours she loves. 

The result was this lovely quilt:

 

Everyone in the Group contributed strips from their stash and we shared them out so there was a continuity of colours and fabrics throughout the quilt.

Here's a Close-up of A Close-up of some of the spider webs.e Spider Webs.

I finished the quilt off by tying the centres of each web and sewing a button in the centre of each kite star. Ruth provided the buttons from her stash as she had a packet of buttons in exactly the colours we has used in the quilt: red, green, hot pink, shell pink, orange and green.

My attempt at an "arty" photo, the quilt draped over my armchair!

And the backing which was pieced:

Win, our 100 year old member has been in hospital and a convalescence home for a few months so she  recently asked a friend to sort out lots of fabrics for our Group. We all chose a few pieces and made a donation to Win's favourite Charity and then the rest we have kept as our "Group Stash" to use in further Group Quilt projects. The lovely soft flannel mauve and white checked fabric and the fuchsia pink binding fabrics both came from Win's fabrics. The piece of flannel was not quite large enough so Lynne found a lovely strip of fabric which matched so beautifully with the checked fabric.

This morning was our last Patchwork meeting before Christmas so we presented it to Sarah today.
She was utterly amazed at the gift, thrilled with the choice of design, the colours, the softness, etc etc!

In fact she was almost in tears as she had never imagined receiving a quilt.  Sarah sat with it on her lap for the rest of the morning and said she was going to have it tucked round her knees when she watched television this evening. 
We couldn't have wished for a better response!  Giving is such a joy, isn't it?

soscrappy: Moving on Down the List

soscrappy: Moving on Down the List



Cherry Blossoms is gorgeous. Unusual design and great colours. Congratulations on such a productive week!

Like the curate's egg .......... good in parts!

Well, what a mixed bag of a week I have had! I am still recovering from the horrendous cold which hit me almost three weeks ago. I dread catching colds because I know I will be in for weeks of misery.
This one was even worse than usual and I spent a lot of time in bed for the first couple of weeks, fighting off sinusitis, hard barking cough, high temperatures etc etc.  However, I finally feel as though I have turned the corner.  Still coughing and feeling very tired so hope my energy levels pick up soon.

So, part one of the Good parts of the Curate's Egg is feeling a lot better than I have for a while!

I haven't done any sewing whilst I was feeling poorly, so it was good to get back to some on Wednesday, although it was not as straightforward as I had planned!  My head still feels very woolly which perhaps explains the many mistakes I made. 

I was trying to complete a String Quilt which has been weeks in the making (there is a lot of work in these quilts).  I had sewn the blocks together before I went down with the lurgy so on Wednesday I started to prepare the backing and batting. 
The quilt is larger than the sizes I normally make ( approx 68" square when it's finished) so the piece of backing fabric I had wasn't big enough - hunted in my stash to find a complementary piece of fabric so I could create a pieced backing.  The idea was to make a strip of pieces either side of the original large piece.  First mistake - I hadn't done the maths properly so had to piece even more bits to make the sides long enough.  All time consuming and frustrating when you are trying to catch up on time lost being ill.

On to the batting.  Joy of joys, no piece large enough so yet more piecing had to be done.  Again, I made a mistake with the maths ( blame the woolly head and breaking off mid-cutting to check on my pot of home made soup) and I cut the piece 10" short!  Even more piecing by which time I was decidedly fed up!!!

Then wrestling the quilt on our bedroom floor, trying to sandwich it without getting too many wrinkles.  It took me a very long time and I was exhausted at the end of it all.  Lots of scratches from the safety pins too.

Note to self ............. don't make another quilt this large.
And, don't try to make equally matched pieced strips to fit either side of a large piece of fabric. 
I failed to centre the top symmetrically so the back will not be equal. Hope it looks OK once it is finished.

Another Good part of the Curate's Egg:  I have now started tying my quilt, so the end is in sight. This quilt has to be finished by the New Year so it can go to NZ with me for a 70th birthday gift for our lovely neighbour.

Here's a Sneak Peek:

 

And the backing!

 

 

Another great bit of the Curate's Egg was going to my Patchwork Group yesterday - first time for three weeks.

One of the Group gift quilts was almost finished and I spent a happy hour last night doing the finishing touches:

 

Only a Sneak Peek because this won't be handed over for a week or so:

 

 

It's really lovely!!

 

I finally managed to get my three QAYG blocks off to Alison  ( littleislandquilting.blogspot.co.uk)for the Soy Amado project. They've been sitting here waiting for me to go to the Post Office.

 

So, another Good part of the Curate's Egg!

 

But the really Good part was this:  A parcel from Australia from my lovely Blog friend Jo - jobutterfield.blogspot.co.uk

 

Inside a gorgeous card with a pen and a wrapped gift which I will open on Christmas Day.  Thank you, Jo.  I do hope we manage to meet in person one day.

 

 

 

And finally, another great part of the Curate's Egg was having a good report at the hospital on Thursday.  My consultant is very pleased, all well at present so that's a wonderful feeling.

So, all in all, more Good than Bad. Hurrah!

In case you are wondering what the saying "Like a Curate's Egg, good in parts" means:
The origin of the phrase is the George du Maurier cartoon "True Humility", printed in the British satirical magazine 'Punch' in 1895.  A curate is being entertained and his host says "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones!"
The Curate: "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!"

Well, having listed all my week's events I think I can safely say that MOST of the parts of my egg were good.... in fact some were absolutely marvellous!

UFO progress - linking with Jo's Country Junction

I am linking with Jo's Country Junction's UFO Challenge which she put out to Quilters Blog Land three (or four?) weeks ago. 
As a lead up to Bonnie Hunter's new Mystery Quilt which will be revealed on Friday this week, Jo challenged other quilters with Bonnie Hunter UFOs to finish them before that deadline on Friday.

Well, I won't finish this quilt by Friday but the Challenge did spur me on to finish this
Spider web UFO which was still at a handful of blocks stage.
I have begun hand quilting it with my usual Perle cotton choice but there is no rush to finish now as this is my Handwork Project that will go with me to Patchwork group meetings.  I love Spider web Quilts and am excited to see how well this one has come together.

Ta Dah!

 

And, just to prove I have started the hand quilting, a close up  of the centre spider webs:

 

 

Linking up with Jo's Country Junction UFO Challengejoscountryjunction.com UFO Pre-Mystery Challenge

 

QAYG blocks for Soy Amado

Now that I have finally surfaced from over a week in bed dealing with a heavy cold which got worse and worse and worse - thank heavens for antibiotics, I say! - I can finally write a post about the three QAYG blocks I made for Alison's on going project, Soy Amado Quilts

I have made a couple of lots of QAYG blocks for Alison in the past and thoroughly enjoyed making them.  I am full of admiration for Alison because she continues to make these quilts for a great cause: they are sent to a children's home in Mexico where every bed has one of her colourful quilts to cheer up the rather utilitarian surroundings. I am sure the children must be delighted as each quilt is completely different.  Have a look at Alison's blog: littleislandquilting.blogspot.co.uk
and her Flickr Group page: Soy Amado - quilted blocks for charity

As I finished the group quilt top and looked through stash for suitable squares for making lavender bags I thought I would take the opportunity to use up some orphan blocks and scraps to make a few blocks for Soy Amado.

Firstly I made two blocks using two orphan blocks from the group quilt top:

 

 

I surrounded the centres with scraps found from stash and the leopard print FQ I also  found in my stash.

 

When I made the lavender bags I discovered a bag of 3.875" squares and striped blocks I had used to make a Pinwheel Quilt for my sister - back in April 2010!

 

I used the 4 striped orphan blocks to make the centre, halved the squares and joined to make borders and created this QAYG block:

 

 

 

Two of the blocks had pieced backings, again using scraps and the rest of the leopard print FQ whilst the third used a leftover piece of fabric which has lingered in my scraps stash for several years.

 

 

 

All three were hand quilted using Perle thread - a process I so enjoy.

 

They have been waiting patiently for me to get better, so now I hope to get them mailed in the next couple of days.

 

Working on making gifts

My Patchwork Group is busy working on another surprise quilt for another of our members.

The Spiderweb Quilt is well on the way.  Sandwiched and the binding machined on by one of our members, it was ready for me to start the hand quilting at our meeting on Thursday morning. During our time together I managed to quilt a double row of stitches around the cream star centres on the quilt, using a bright pink variegated Perle thread from my stash. The quilt has now passed on to someone else to continue the hand quilting.

So, the second quilt:  A few weeks ago we chose a design called "Sherbet Lemon Quilt" from a Jelly Roll book belonging to one of our group.  I was looking through the book when I spied this quilt and thought we could adapt it and use it for our next Gift Quilt. I had to adapt it quite a bit so I could make up Kit Sets for 7 members to make 2 sets of Block A and 2 sets of Block B each.  Those were then given back to me so I could put the blocks together to make this quilt top:

 

Another friend now has the top, batting and backing that I bought so she can sandwich the quilt ready for everyone else to pass around the group so the hand quilting will be completed.

Everyone is very pleased with the result - they are pleased with how the design has turned out and we all agree the colours are exactly right for the lady who will receive this gift.

 

Yesterday I did a bit of my own sewing!  I needed some lavender bags for our wardrobes and decided to make a few more:  three for my sister and three for my daughter who loves having lavender bags everywhere!

 

These are functional, rather than works of art, so I quickly added ribbons and buttons so they could hang from coathangers in the cupboard:

 

Eight for me (already in use) and six for gifting.

 

Renamed, wrapped up and delivered

Well, baby Ella Rose was born on 21st October so the Wonky Star Quilt was hers.

I decided to rename it "Galaxy of Stars" as although I know what "Wonky stars" means, I thought it might sound as though I hadn't tried very hard and had been a bit slapdash in sewing the blocks!

I embroidered a label and tied it up with a pretty deep pink ribbon and popped it into a lovely pink and white paper gift carrier bag.  Yesterday DH and I went down to see our step granddaughter and the new baby.  What a sweetie she is! Asleep most of the time we were there but I did manage a cuddle and we did take a few photographs.  Mum and Dad were very pleased with the quilt so I hope it get lots of use.

Here's the quilt:

 

Today I have been busy sewing more strings on my Spiderweb triangles.